


Original Sins

by manic_intent



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, John may be a little obsessed, M/M, That AU where Death Benefit has a different outcome, and Harold isn't sure whether he still wants to be involved with the Machine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-08-10
Packaged: 2018-01-21 18:31:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1559969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Machine had been born to commit the first original sin, of knowledge... and now, in its evolution, it had committed the second, of murder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic began with my offhand thought after the last PoI ep that things could have been much simpler if John or Shaw had shot that Congressman in Death Benefits. Maybe.

I.

Where John hesitates again at Harold's grab for his sleeve, Shaw does not: she squeezes past them both, gun levelled, firing twice, efficiently, damningly loud in the close confines of the house. "Get Harold out of here," she tells John firmly, as Harold stares, far too dumbfounded to protest, ears numb and ringing, and although he resists for a moment when John grasps his elbow, he moves when John starts to tug him gently towards the kitchen.

Instead of following them immediately, Shaw ducks into the room where the Decima operative is tied up, and Harold flinches violently as he hears Shaw shoot twice again. He's dizzy and blinking as John hustles him out of the house, up and into the woods, careful of his hip and his limping pace, and it's only after a numb eternity of stumbling through the trees, each step too loud, too slow, that Shaw abruptly seems to ghost up beside John, gun drawn but pointed at the ground, glancing over her shoulder.

"Police has moved in. They'll find a botched burglary-murder setup. Doubt there'll be further pursuit, from them, anyway."

John nods, and his eyes are carefully neutral. "Best to lie low for a while. We'll get Harold back to the library. See if you can jack a car ahead." 

"Yep." Shaw steps briskly forward, her movements through the shadows near perfectly silent, and it feels as though Harold is seeing Sameen Shaw all over again: not just as the ex-Agent that he has taken in, but what she seems to really be - a huntress, a predator. She had understood the intent of the Machine, and had accepted it: as had John, Harold decides despairingly. John could have stopped Shaw when she had stepped around them. John could have - or Harold himself could have-

He's silent all the way home, Shaw driving, John and Harold in the back. John's sitting oddly close, but Harold doesn't have the energy to make a note of it: he's staring at his hands, instead, nervously rubbing his thumbs over his fingers, and his breathing seems harsh, shaky, and he is grieving, Harold thinks, dimly. This is Harold Finch, grieving the death of innocence: not his, nor Shaw's, nor John's, but the innocence of an entity that had been like a child, and was now something that Finch no longer could claim to understand. 

The Machine had been born to commit the first original sin, of knowledge... and now, in its evolution, it had committed the second, of murder. 

"A great man in his pride," Harold murmurs, shakily quoting Yeats, as his fingers still, "Confronting murderous men, Casts derision upon supersession of breath; He knows death to the bone - Man has created death." 

"He's in shock," John tells Shaw briskly, then Harold flinches again as John presses his big, rough palm over Harold's intertwined fingers. "Harold, you're going to have to lie down-"

"I'm not in _actual_ shock," Harold snaps, and his tone is harsher than he intended, but John doesn't even blink. "Just get me back to the library." 

"All right, Harold," John says reasonably, "But you should loosen that scarf and tie, just in case." 

"I'm not-" Harold begins, sighs, then irritably tugs at the scarf and then his tie, unbuttoning the top button of his shirt. That doesn't make John relax, but John nods slowly, sitting back against the seat, still too close. He stays close even as they get back into the library, Shaw disappearing to presumably ditch the illegally obtained car, and Harold's briefly distracted by Bear, which whines and nuzzles at his hand and glances between them both, clearly sensing the tension and worried. 

"Bear is yours," Harold starts by saying, his voice shaky at first, then firming as he presses a hand against his desk. "I will leave you and Miss Shaw a generous stipend. You may both keep the safehouses that I have set you both up with and-"

"Wait, Harold," John interrupts, and _now_ there's a flash of anxiety on his face. "What are you saying?"

"I told you in the... in the house that if this is where the Machine has gone, then I want no further part of this, of all of this," Harold gestures sharply at the room around him. "I can't assist... It's developed beyond the original parameters that I've set upon it, John. And that frightens me. I built the Machine to _save lives_. It should not have been able to even _begin_ to prioritize its own _function_ over a _person's_!"

"All right, Harold," John says, and Harold takes in another shuddering breath as he realizes belatedly that he has raised his voice. "Maybe it wasn't prioritizing its own. Maybe it was prioritizing yours. And mine, and Shaw's, Fusco's, everyone whose life that Samaritan would have threatened by coming online."

"Our deaths were no certainty-"

"And if Samaritan could see everything, know everything, as your Machine does," John rolls on, "Don't you think that it would have found Grace? _I_ found Grace, Harold. So did Root. Do you think that a powerful AI could not have done so, just as easily?"

The world seems to drop away from under his feet, and Harold takes in a high, pained breath even as his hand clenches tightly on the desk beside him, his knuckles turning white. Yes. He had not thought of that. He hadn't thought further than just the immediate variables. What about everything else? If Samaritan was going to wipe the playing board, what about variables like... Fusco's son? Their friends, like Zoe Morgan, Leon and more? 

And Grace.

"I think that the Machine was afraid," John continues, in the same measured tone, as though trying to soothe a frightened animal. "And when a child is afraid, it just turns to drastic measures. I think we took too long to figure out what the threat was. I think we can do better next time, maybe, teach the Machine to-"

"To do what, Mister Reese?" Harold asks distantly. "To decide when and where it is _right_ to kill? The problem remains. I made the Machine to _protect people_. It should not have been able to even conceptualise _killing people_ as an _option_."

"It shouldn't have been able to 'conceptualise' the need to protect 'irrelevant' people too, should it?" John counters. "Find a way to preserve its memory every night when coded not to? Harold, you created a _living thing_ , for all that it doesn't wear flesh. Shaw understands this, and Root - _I_ understand it. You have to accept that what you've created is _life_. And it's the nature of something alive and intelligent to evolve. It's the nature of life to want to preserve itself." 

"And what happens," Harold says flatly, "When this 'life' evolves into something dangerous? You don't understand, John. For something so powerful as the Machine to desire something like _this_ , to want us to kill?"

"And what did you think happens to the Relevants, Harold?" John asked flatly. "Do you think they're all alive and kicking? Most of them don't get shuffled into Guantanamo, Shaw can tell you. Don't you realize? What you made the Machine do - what it probably thought its function was - was to help humanity find and kill other humans that threaten humanity as a whole. The only thing that surprises me about this new development is that your Machine chose _us_ to handle the Congressman rather than Root."

Stunned by John's words, the only thing Harold manages to say is, "And why do you think it did?"

"Maybe it thought that we could find another way. Or maybe it thought that it was time for us to grow up," John says easily. "That there's two sides to what it does, and it's time that we recognised that. That _you_ recognised that. Tell me, Harold. Knowing that Samaritan going online could have killed us all, perhaps killed Grace, Nathan's son, Fusco's kid, Zoe, everyone who's been involved with us: are you still telling me that Shaw was wrong to pull the trigger?"

"I think that we're dealing in absolutes when the problem exists in possibilities," Harold whispers. "I don't think that murder is the answer - I think that... I think that perhaps, you're right, John. I never understood the Machine at all. And now that I think that I'm finally beginning to, I think that I can't help it any longer, not until I... not until I think this over, not until I..." 

He trails off, uncomfortably, and the silence stretches between them both, the _distance_ , and it's after an indefinite and agonised period of nothingness that Bear lets out a soft and whuffling whine at Harold's feet. John blinks, and then he nods slowly. "All right. But you're not going to disappear, are you? Are you going to be okay here?" John's reasonable tone finally cracks: there's a thread of anxiety in his voice, in the nervous tension of his shoulders. 

"I once said that I would never lie to you, John," Harold sits himself down wearily at the desk. "So please don't make me answer that question."

II.

Disappearing has always been easy. Finch activates the subroutine he had coded into the Machine, what feels like an age and more ago, and heads to one of his safehouses, where he changes clothes at random, shoes, even his glasses and belt, just in case John has decided to be creative again about boundaries.

It takes another trip to yet another safehouse before Harold realizes grimly that he's stalling. If he wants to be left alone, to be away from the Machine, then he has to leave the country. Go somewhere remote, or somewhere ludicrously crowded... anywhere that even John and Shaw will have difficulty tracking him down. It's only there that he'll have the space to think. 

He'll have to leave his safehouses, all the covers that he's carefully maintained... a considerable amount of his resources, his comforts and protections - he'll have to leave _John_. 

Somehow, that's far more disconcerting than the rest of it all, and Harold realizes that he's just spent the last fifteen minutes standing irresolutely before a bedroom closet belonging to Harold Swan. Grimly, Harold uses his new, disposable phone to make a call, taking care of all of his final arrangements, and then he's on his way to a private airfield just outside New York. Just an hour later, he's en route to Charles de Gaulle. 

Paris isn't the best of choices for someone who wants to disappear, Harold knows, but he feels off-balance and unsettled enough as it is, and it feels good to attend a concert at the Musée d'Orsay. It feels good to eat at Mirazur, good to sit in the Louvre, in the presence of much that is great and beautiful in the world, even if he's swamped by a tide of humanity. Harold goes off-grid entirely for perhaps the first time in his life. 

All in all, he probably shouldn't have been surprised that John managed to find him anyway: a month into his new residence in Paris, while Harold is sitting in the Denon Wing, John sits down on the bench next to him, unruffled and handsome as ever in a long black coat and his suit, his face a neutral cast. 

Strangely enough - or perhaps not - the first thing that Harold finds that he feels is a visceral sense of _satisfaction_. "John," he murmurs, barely audible over the crowd. 

"Harold," John acknowledges, and there's a faint tremor to his voice that even his considerable training cannot hide, and _that_ , more than this month of forced calm, decides Harold on what to do next. 

He's always been aware of John's... devotion, of course: it's patently obvious, desperate moments with bomb vests on rooftops and snide comments from Root aside. Before, however, the Machine and his self-imposed life's work with the Irrelevant list had seemed so much more important than any personal concerns, and besides, it had seemed wildly inappropriate. Harold, after all, was John's sole benefactor and employer: it seemed like a breach of trust and worse to try and turn that devotion into something more. 

"Do I want to know how you found me?"

"This helper monkey is actually competent at field work, Harold, despite what you think," John notes, dry as dust. "And you didn't go to very great lengths to change your habits. If you really didn't want to be found, you probably should have... I don't know, flown to Mongolia and gone riding with the nomads, perhaps."

"Ah, well," Harold grumbles, with a little scowl, and the mask cracks - John grins broadly: he's so powerfully, beautifully _pleased_ to see Harold that Harold actually starts to feel a little guilt about abandoning New York, however briefly. "You took a month to find me, though."

"Actually, I took a week to find you," John corrects. "I respect your choices. You wanted to leave, I could respect that. Shaw did, too."

"Then..." Harold trails off for a moment. "Ah, I see. My number came up. Probably of the alias I used to book the flight."

"Yes." The tremor's back in John's voice. 

He's been naive after all. Harold should have known better. He's never been able to escape the world. He should have left Paris within days of landing there, travelled through to the Continent, or disappeared in Hong Kong or Shanghai to live somewhere quietly. He should have known.

"Decima?"

"We presume so."

"The Machine shouldn't have been able to track operations outside of New York."

"It's been learning. All this time." John notes quietly. "And besides, just because its eyes and ears are limited to New York doesn't mean that its mind is. It's tapped into the World Wide Web, after all, and the darknet and more, isn't it? I don't care how it knew. But I'm glad that you're safe."

"We can't fight Decima," Harold murmurs. "They're a very well-resourced organisation. The best we can do is hide from them."

"Fighting them isn't our problem." John narrows his eyes a little. "I gather the Machine decided that it's Root's problem. The last I heard, she might be cutting a deal with Control."

"A deal with the devil to fight a devil." 

"Maybe. Not our problem." John's casing the area, Harold notes, watching the crowd with a seemingly casual indifference. Letting out a deep, slow breath, Harold decides to leave. Decima probably wouldn't try anything within the Louvre, but if they did, Harold would never forgive himself if any of the masterpieces got even remotely scratched. 

They end up having lunch at Angelina, with its perfect croque monsieur and desserts, as much as John's clearly growing a little impatient. "So what next, Harold?" John finally asks, over coffee. "Mongolia after all?"

"I don't think that I can do any sort of nomadic living with my hip and spinal injuries," Harold says dryly. "But thank you for the suggestion, Mister Reese."

Something shutters away in John's expression, even as he straightens up a little in his chair and toys with his coffee cup. "Hong Kong. Sweden. Mombasa. Or buy an island. That might be best."

"Attractive as the prospect of holing up in an island is, I'm actually coming back to New York," Harold says, and manages not to smile as John's hand freezes over the rim of the cup. "I didn't come here to run away from it all, John. I came here to think. I suppose that it _is_ a good time for me to return."

"I'm surprised that you haven't built yet another world-changing miracle in the meantime, then," John teases, but his heart's not in it: there's too much relief even for his training to hide, this time - it's naked and breathlessly intense in his face, bright with feverish joy. 

Harold has an apartment in the Latin Quarter, and the cafes are still busy outside as he unlocks the door to let them both in. He doesn't actually have anything to pack, and he wonders if John knows this, if there's protocol, if perhaps he's misread the situation all along, if it's still too inappropriate. But then John presses close after doing a quick circuit around the apartment to check security, and kisses him nervously on the mouth, brushing and quick, lingering with a low gasp only as Harold tentatively reaches up to get a hand around the nape of John's neck. 

They don't make it to the bed: Harold ends up sprawled in an armchair nearly scandalously close to a window, John between his thighs, hands cradling Harold's hips as he sucks him down with a rough and noisy enthusiasm that's hell on Harold's self-control. Harold lets out a hoarse yelp as he feels John's throat compress over the head of his cock and scrabbles at John's shoulders, suddenly so desperate with lust and need that it frightens him. 

He's never felt like this with Grace, or with anyone: but of course - this is the first time that he is so _naked_ with anyone, not acting a character, not under any sort of cover or falsehood. John is the first person whom Harold has ever met to have loved his truest self so absolutely and fiercely. 

John misinterprets Harold's touch, pulling off with a quick look of concern that turns into smugness when Harold growls and tugs at his collar. "Want to fuck me, Harold?" John purrs, his voice a rasp from the abuse that he's just put his throat through, and when Harold sucks in a sharp intake of breath, John rubs his cheek against Harold's thigh, his lips obscenely red and spit-slicked. "Or, to be more precise, _I_ want you to fuck me." 

"The mechanics of such an exercise are going to be rather limited," Harold tries to say without squeaking, but John merely laughs and palms Harold's cock teasingly and smirks again.

"Leave the mechanics to me."

John ends up naked and precariously balanced on Harold's lap, sprawled with limber ease over Harold in the dangerously creaking armchair, and then he sets an palm against the wall and one against the backrest once he stretches himself impatiently and rides Harold with a raw hunger that seems brutal in its pace. John's breath heaves against them as Harold grips his narrow waist, and then he groans and snarls as Harold manages a tentative lick, then a bite, over a hard nipple. 

"Harold," John stutters, and then gasps, "Oh Gods, Harold," as Harold experimentally slips a palm down past the small of John's back to the cleft in his rump, and at the first curious press of his thumb against the stretched rim of John's hole, John cries out and spills against him, his cock pumping a wet stripe against Harold's belly, ruining his vest. 

John pauses only to catch his breath, then he grins and clenches tight, studying Harold as he yelps and writhes as though committing him to memory, then he starts to ride Harold again, shorter, quick snaps of his hips that are _exactly_ what Harold needs, and he ends up moaning "John, _oh_ , John," when he comes. 

The shower's a squeeze for two, but they manage, and then John checks the window reflexively before curling up against Harold on the bed. "How's everyone?" Harold asks tentatively. 

"Fine. Bear's doing good, Fusco's helping out more, Shaw has the Irrelevant list under control." 

"I'm not sure that I like the idea of an alliance between Root and Control." 

"Root can't handle the Relevant list by herself." John's tone is deliberately disinterested, and he presses a kiss against Harold's shoulder even as he speaks. "It's presumably a nationwide problem, not just New York." 

"I know." Harold hesitates. "Eventually, the Machine will find a way to increase its current... capacities. Encompass the nation itself, perhaps more. The Irrelevant list will also grow beyond our capacities."

"Yeah." John doesn't sound disinterested anymore: he leans up on one elbow, his expression watchful, almost wary. 

"I made something as close to God as many of us would think, and then I set it free," Harold murmurs, "And I am afraid, John, very afraid that it may have never understood the concept of mercy, of the value of all life."

"Then teach it." John points out, as he settles back down against Harold's flank. "Shaw and I may be the helper monkeys, Root may be its prophet, or whatever she is, but I think that you have always been its teacher, Harold. I think perhaps that your rejection of it as anything more than a tool in your operation to save people possibly led to the problem with the Congressman, indirectly."

"John-"

"I think that it's highly dangerous that the only person whom the Machine feels that it can safely talk to - really talk to, person to person - is Root. I think that until you fix that, it's probably a little unfair of you to expect as much of your creation as you do."

"Oh," Harold says numbly, as John grins tiredly at him and nuzzles his arm. 

"Can't fault a child for learning bad habits when it only gets bad parenting," 

"You've made your point," Harold concedes, and sighs. The suggestion that John has made is one that he objectively knows that he has been avoiding irrationally for some time. "The truth is, I'm afraid of the power that the Machine has given Root. To have the ear of God - I didn't want that." 

"If I could do it for you I would," John says, "But Harold, you're probably the best person I know to do what needs to be done. You taught it to understand humanity. Maybe you need to teach it how to learn from humanity, not just from our data."

"I know." Painfully, stiffly, Harold manages to turn, to get an awkward kiss up against John's forehead which quickly turns into a hungry one as John surges up to meet him.

III.

The flight home is inevitable and pleasant. John sits close and seems to find every possible excuse to touch Harold, as if to reassure himself that Harold is really there, and it would have been endearing if Harold wasn't busy worrying about the Machine, about his return, about Decima's next move.

Eventually John settles for just reading a magazine with a thigh pressed casually against Harold's, and relaxes further with a low sound when Harold tentatively places a palm over John's knee.

"John. When we're home..." Harold trails off, a little uncertainly, then tries again. "About this."

"You're coming home. That's enough for me. Harold, I thought that - when I boarded the flight for Paris - I thought maybe I would be too late. That I'll never see you again. Or that I'll see you one last time before you disappear somewhere else into the world. If you want more: God yes, Harold. If you want take it slow, fine. If you want to forget it happened..." John leans forward, his hand pressing over Harold's. "Fine. If that's what you want." 

"I won't be cruel," Harold promises, uncomfortably. "It's just that this is very new to me, John. I've always been... Harold Finch, or Wren, or Crane, and so on. Even with Grace, although that was the closest I've ever been to being _me_ , she's never... well," Harold concludes helplessly. 

Grace had never been subjected to Harold's paranoia, his prickly side, his occasional intransigencies. He had never been impatient with Grace before, or unreasonable, or angry. Grace has never known the extent of what Harold has done to the world, of what he had unwittingly done to Nathan. He knows that she would have loved him regardless: probably - but still. The vastness of Harold's secret had sat heavily between them.

"I know," John's grinning again, broad and relieved. "And I get that we have more problems right now. I just want you to know," he adds, as he leans in, to brush his lips distractingly up Harold's jaw, "That you're the best thing that has ever happened to me."

Harold gets very little else done through the flight, and when they land, hours later, he's actually feeling refreshed. Energized, even. He steps out briskly onto the tarmac after hobbling painfully down the narrow ramp steps to see Shaw waiting for them both, leaning against one of Harold's black cars, wrapped up in a coat with her gloved hands tucked into the deep pockets. 

"I admit I had some doubts," Shaw tells John, as he steps around Harold to open the door of the car for him. 

"That I would come back?" Harold asks. 

"That John here could find you at all," Shaw grins, "Or that if he did, that he would even bother to come back with you. I was imagining maybe that he'll just keep on stalking you all over the world." 

John shrugs. "Anything came up while I was gone?"

"You could say that." Shaw pushes away from the car. "Root's gone missing. And I think that the Machine is starting to get angry."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well this went through an extensive rewrite after the last couple of eps... XD;; 
> 
> Spoilers for the last ep of Season 3, so:
> 
> S
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> P
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> I
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> L
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> R
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> S

I.

"Isn't it obvious what just happened?" Shaw prowls around the glass panel as Harold sticks on a photo of Root, then one of Control, and her known associate Hersh. "Root goes to meet Control, Root disappears, things go to hell."

"If that was the case," Harold reminds her mildly, "Then Miss Groves would have been the only number received. We also have Control's, however, and Senator Garrison's, and... a Mister Riviera, whom is apparently the President's top advisor. And one more number, whose identity we have yet to ascertain." 

Shaw shrugs. "Root goes in, crashes a party, Root gets bagged. I've been to the hotel where she was going to catch up with Control. It's been swept."

"Security feeds from the convenience store opposite Hotel Grande indicate that several large crate deliveries were handled at around eight-oh-six in the evening," Harold limps back over his desk, settling down and bringing up the stills. "Given the number of boxes and the timing, I think that this is the best probable way that Root and the others were moved."

"But the number of boxes fits the number of victims," John leans distractingly close to look at the screen. "So it's possible that none of the numbers were the perpetrator."

"It had to be someone with the means and intel of finding out exactly when and where Control was meeting with Riviera and Garrison," Harold decides. "Was Root meeting them, or did she 'crash' the meeting?"

Shaw shrugs. "How should I know? I was tied up with a bad cash deal gone south with a Mexican cartel offshoot down east of Harlem. I only figured out that Root was in a fix when the Machine started to ring me with every possible public phone in the vicinity."

"How did you figure out that the Machine was angry?"

"Once I saw who the new Number was, I thought that Root could handle herself until I finished cleaning up after the last Number. The Machine didn't agree. It sabotaged my phone, shorted out an ATM when I tried to get some cash, more." Shaw's mouth lifts into a tight smile as she glances at Harold. "Might want to teach that kid of yours that throwing a tantrum isn't really fucking mature, Finch."

Harold blinks slowly. "It's never done that before." _Even when I was kidnapped._

"Yeah, well." This time, Shaw bares her teeth. "Might be it's starting to realize what it can do when it flexes its muscles a little."

"How can a Machine get angry?" Harold murmurs. Though, then again, no human scientist had yet come close to unlocking how the brain worked and all its secrets. Perhaps the Machine had somehow... wired itself to have the same electrical synapses, except on a massive scale. Perhaps-

"Let's leave the philosophical questions aside for now." John straightens up, his gaze drifting to the glass panel. "Maybe we should hit up some old contacts for a hint."

"Networking?" Shaw smirks. "I _love_ networking." 

"I'll stay here and try to trace the route of that delivery van, and figure out that last number." Harold volunteered, and John shot him a long, searching look before he nodded slowly. Shaw stalked off instantly, but John lingered, hip pressed against the desk, and when Harold frowns briefly at him, John grins and leans over for a quick peck on the forehead.

Reflexively, Harold's hand jerks up, and he finds his fingers curled in John's collar instead. John tenses, his breaths warm against Harold's temple, then he chuckles, low and soft. "Shaw's not very patient." 

"Oh. Oh, yes," Harold murmurs, flushing in embarrassment and dropping his hand, but John doesn't straighten up, instead leaving a ticklish line of brushing kisses from Harold's ear to his cheekbone. "John."

John's breathing hitches, a tiny groan, and Harold shifts uncomfortably at the sudden twinge of _want_ that curls in his gut. "It's killing me to have to leave you alone right now," John whispers harshly, his hands pressed on the arm rests, bracketing Harold's frame. 

"I'll be fine here, with Bear," Harold says automatically, and when John's lips quirk wryly, he adds, hastily, "Ah, I suppose, after this is finished, we could-"

" _After_ this is finished," Shaw says dryly from the entryway, "Maybe you guys could fuck on that desk or whatever it is, but right now we have bigger problems, don't we?"

John closes his eyes, the only sign of irritation on his face, even as Harold flushes crimson, but when John straightens up, his expression is as bland as always. "Let's go, Shaw."

"So is _that_ how you got Finch to come home?" Shaw continues, clearly amused. "I wouldn't have thought that you would try a honeypot move, Reese." 

John stiffens, almost imperceptibly, but he drawls, "Anything for the job, Miss Shaw." 

Bear scrambles up from the dog bed the moment John and Shaw are gone, as he usually does, wagging his tail and snuffling at Harold's hand, and Harold sighs. " _Bal_." 

Whining in excitement, Bear picks up his tennis ball and deposits it into Harold's hand, and bounds away excitedly, claws scrabbling at the ground, when Harold tosses it away down the corridor. 

_Anything for the job, Miss Shaw_. 

Objectively, Harold knows that the flippancy is merely part of John's usual dry humour, that it's nothing compared to the reverent way John had acted towards him in Paris, like the devotion that John has showed him so far, but the words sting a little nonetheless. Swallowing another sigh, he takes the ball from Bear when the dog scrambles back to him, and tosses it away again down the corridor. 

"Things are easier for you," Harold tells Bear, when the dog returns, still as excited as ever. Bear snuffles a whine around the ball, and thumps his tail against the ground when Harold tickles its ears. "Now _af_." 

Bear drops the ball obediently and lies back down on the dog bed, as Harold brings up a few command prompt windows and the security feeds, pushing away his unease. He has a van to find.

II.

Half an hour's work traces the van to a stolen vehicles report filed two days ago, which proves to be a dead end, but the encrypted number turns up a familiar face after Harold ends up surreptitiously hacking Interpol. _Greer_.

John picks up the three-way call immediately. "Finch?"

"The last number is Greer, John. It's Decima."

John curses under his breath, then Shaw says, "Know where Decima is?"

Harold's about to answer, when a gruff, vaguely familiar voice answers, "Yeah."

"We still friends?" Shaw asks dryly. 

"Thinking on it." 

"Miss Shaw?" Harold asks. "Who-"

"We picked up a lost puppy," John says dryly, "Sniffing around, looking for its mistress." 

A quick bypass into a nearby security camera feed at John's GPS location shows a fuzzy, top-down image of a distinctly familiar grizzled bear of a man, leading them briskly towards the lifts. "Agent _Hersh_? John, I am not so certain about your new choice in friends."

"Enemy of our enemy, Harold." 

"George isn't so bad. Pretty sure he's toilet trained." Harold can hear Shaw's smirk through her voice. 

"Funny," Hersh growls, but says nothing else. Harold watches them jack a car through a coffee shop camera, and just as he's about to ask John to tell Hersh to clarify Decima's location, the feed goes off.

So do all the lights in the library, and as Harold startles at his desk, thinking it a localised power failure, he pulls out his phone and sees that the reception has gone. Blinking in the dark, he gets to his feet, groping for a moment for the edge of the table, and then flinches when Bear presses its warm bulk against his good leg, with a snuffling sound.

"Good boy," Harold murmurs. " _Apport_." 

He hears Bear's claws scratching on the boards, then the dog comes back with his leash, pressing it into Harold's hands. It takes a moment to attach it to Bear's collar in the dark, then he says, " _Volg_ ," and uses the torchlight app on his phone to give himself a little light. 

It's not a localised power failure. The meter box is unresponsive, and when Harold limps outside with Bear, he finds a darkened city in a pandemonium of stalled traffic and confusion. Horrified, he can only look around with dull astonishment for a long moment, then he grits his teeth and turns back to the library after a long moment of indecision. He doesn't know where John and the others are heading, after all. He can't help. With no computer, with no power - Harold is nothing but a middle-aged cripple. 

Bitterly, Harold navigates the way back up to his desk. The blackout is too convenient to be anything but associated with the kidnapping. Whoever their opponent is - very likely Decima - it's powerful and well resourced. The chaos that a city-wide blackout will cause will overtax emergency services and law enforcement, and... Gods, what about the hospitals? What about people trapped in lifts or worse because of the power failure? His breath hissing out between his teeth, Harold clenches his hands. He's never felt more helpless. 

Bear whines encouragingly, and Harold sighs, allowing the dog to guide him back to the desk - only for a phone to start ringing, sharp and shrill, from deeper within the library. Harold checks his own phone reflexively, but the reception's still dead. Warily, he picks his way using his phone's light to the sound of the ringing, and finds that it's coming from a box hidden behind a stack of Yeats collections. 

It's a satellite phone, with a torn page from a notebook lying on top of it, upon which is a very familiar verse, in feminine handwriting:

_A great man in his pride_  
 _Confronting murderous men_  
 _Casts derision upon_  
 _Supersession of breath_  
 _He knows death to the bone_  
 _Man has created death_

As he picks up the note, he finds more text scrawled on the back:

_Turning and turning in the widening gyre  
The falcon cannot hear the falconer_

"Things fall apart," Harold shakily quotes the next line to Yeat's famous poem, and he picks up the bulky phone, holding it to his ear. 

There's a series of clicks, as though of a recording being played back, or remixed, then in a dissonant phrase, with each word spoken in a different voice, a question comes. "Can. You. Hear. Me?" 

"Yes," Harold whispers, and closes his eyes.

III.

Fusco shoots him a dubious look when Harold gives him directions to the street corner provided by the Machine. "How is it that _you_ have an idea of what's going on when the city's gone to hell?"

"I have my methods," Harold says evasively. The satellite phone's gone silent for now, thankfully, as though the Machine has sensed how thoroughly uncomfortable Harold is in the role of Root's temporary replacement as its ear. How _was_ it able to still navigate the dark city without power? Satellite uplinks? Harold didn't really wish to think about it. 

At the street corner, unsurprisingly, they pull up just as John, Hersh and Shaw round the corner. Hersh's hand jumps into his coat when Fusco opens the door to the police vehicle, though John narrows his eyes. "Finch?"

"Get in. The siren will clear us a way." Harold instructs, and Fusco scowls at Hersh. 

"Boss, you've got to stop collecting pet killers. Try a normal hobby. Collect _stamps_ , maybe." 

"This one's on loan," Shaw drawls, with a little smirk, as they pile into the back seat of the vehicle. "Where're we going?" 

The satellite phone rings, making Harold flinch, and he picks up hastily. "Thirty-third. Street. Eighth. Ave." 

Harold repeats this to Fusco, who arches an eyebrow. "The eighth avenue old post office? If whatever it is you're looking for is in there, it's a fuckin' _maze_." 

"Just drive, Fusco," John suggests from the back seat, and grumbling, Fusco switches on the siren, squeezing his way through the stalled traffic and crowds. 

"Did Root get free?" Shaw asks, with a nod at Harold's phone. Harold doesn't answer, all too aware of Fusco and Hersh in the car, and after a long moment, Shaw lets out a slow chuckle. "You're fucking with me. Really? Must be getting desperate." 

"Better Finch than Root," John cuts in defensively.

"Hey, you've got no arguments from me on that front," Shaw puts up her hands in mock surrender, even as Hersh clears his throat.

"This is your boss?"

The tension in the car spikes, from John going deadly silent and Shaw shifting in her seat, and hastily, Harold admits, "I suppose that I am."

"You treating her well?"

"Er," Harold's voice edges out in a squeak, and he hastily takes in a breath. "Miss Shaw is well-compensated for her talents." 

In the rearview window, Harold can see Hersh turning solemnly to Shaw. "He try anything with you?"

Shaw lets out a sharp bark of laughter and rolls her eyes. "Seriously, _George_ , are we having this conversation? Now?"

"I'm always serious," Hersh says solemnly. 

"I would _never_ -" Harold protests. 

"Can't you see how that big puppy next to you looks at our boss?" Shaw asks dryly, and Harold sneaks a glance over his back, in time to see John scowl briefly at the both of them before a thought occurs to him.

"Finch, where's Bear?"

"In the library."

"Fusco picked you up from the library?"

"No, I drove to his location." 

John sucks in an unhappy breath. " _Alone_?"

"I don't need a dog to help me to drive." 

"You're probably still in danger from Decima. You should have taken Bear. I don't like you going into the field alone."

"I see what you mean," Hersh tells Shaw, and settles back in his seat. 

Harold is about to object, but the satellite phone rings again. "Basement. Train. Station. Touchpoint. Danger. Disable. Danger. Disable. Power. Loop. Explosives. Stop. Numbers. In. North. Rotunda. Stop. Thirty. One. Civilians. Collateral. Probability. Of. Termination. Seventy. Eight. Per. Cent. Stop." 

The three agents look grim as Harold relates this. "Out of our depth," Hersh suggests. "Need bomb squad." 

"I could call in for backup," Fusco suggests doubtfully. "But with the traffic as bad as this, I'm not sure when they'll get there."

"And we'll probably be going in hot, _and_ have to split up," Shaw adds. 

Against Harold's ear, the Machine clicks to life again. "Turn. Left. Now." 

"Fusco, turn left."

"But we're-"

"Turn left _here_." 

Another click, then, "Black. Van. Two. Hotel. Five. Seven. Seven. Tango." 

"Park here and investigate that black van at the street light," Harold tells them. 

"We don't have time for this," Hersh scowls, but he leaves the car as well when Fusco brakes to allow John and Shaw to pile out. 

The firefight is short and brutal, and when Fusco and Harold catch up, John and Shaw are hauling out masked bodies from the back of the large van. 

"Vigilance," Harold notes, staring down at them.

"Finch, here." Shaw jerks her thumb at a computer screen, wired to a generator. It shows what looks like a mock trial in a large room, with Peter Collier sauntering in front of a panel. A woman sits at judgment, while at the jury bench are rows of pale and frightened looking people. Seated at the defendants' bench are the missing Senator, Control, Greer, and Root, smiling her thin, disconcerting smile.

"No Riviera," Harold observes, but John points at a dark reddish stain next to the defendants' box.

"I think our Presidential advisor's said his last," John supplies grimly.

The phone rings. "Keep. Power. Off. Hack. Municipal. Systems. Servers. Upgrade. Virus." 

Puzzled, but shrugging, Harold manages to get up into the back of the van with John's careful help. "It seems that I have to help keep the city in a blackout," he tells them, as he settles down at the computer. "Somehow." 

"What?" Fusco objects. "It's hell out there right now without the power!"

"I know that, Detective. Please take John, Miss Shaw and Agent Hersh to the post office."

"You can't be here by yourself," John objects. "Fusco will stay here with you. I can drive us there."

"I'll drive," Hersh cuts in. John glares at him.

" _I'll_ drive us there." Shaw decides, before John opens his mouth. "The two of you can continue to exude testosterone in the back seat together. Let's take the masks, maybe we can sneak in as Vigilance. C'mon, boys." 

Fusco settles down on a bench along the hull of the van as the agents clear off, and he shakes his head slowly. "Can't you have picked normal people for your helper monkeys?"

"It takes a certain sort of personality to commit to this line of work, Detective," Harold says absently, as he opens a few command prompt windows. His first ideas aren't going to work, not with the municipal servers down: they're likely going to undergo some sort of hard reset-

"Yeah? Well, I'm glad that you're back," Fusco grouses. "That giant puppy of yours has been moping all month. I thought that he was either going to go postal or eat his gun. Whenever you're not around, _I'm_ stuck dealing with your crazy pets, and they don't handle abandonment very well."

"Thank you for the insight," Harold says pointedly, as he starts to craft another virus quickly. If he can upload the new virus to the servers just before they all go online, perhaps he can localize a blackout in their immediate area. That way the hospitals and emergency services can still go back online over the rest of the city.

With that on the way, there's little left to do but keep working, and hoping for the best. Harold sneaks the occasional uncomfortable glance at the minimised video screen of the trial. If Vigilance is the culprit, then they'll have trouble and more on their hands, especially since Decima will no doubt be looking for their leader. Exhaling a long and shaky breath, he turns his eyes back to the code. 

Wait.

"Eat his _gun_?" Harold repeats, horrified. 

Fusco glances at him, and then snorts. "Or drown himself in a bottle. It was getting there, I could tell. Some dogs can't handle new masters, and Cocopops doesn't exactly inspire love and peace, does she? Still," he adds, scowling at the trial screen, "Fuck that. No one deserves to be stuck in this sort of crazy shit." 

Harold nods slowly, forcing his palms to go still and splayed on the table. He'll have to speak to John about this later. For now, he needs to give everyone more time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Wow. Sorry about the hiatus. Was blown away by the season finale... and then all my original vague ficbunnies ran off, and I wandered into other fandoms. How great was the season ending? And how hilarious was the next season teaser? XD;; Man. Poor Shaw. I'll try to close up this fic so that at least there's some sort of ending. So, so looking forward to next season.

I.

"... and so Hersh miraculously managed to defuse the bombs," Shaw continues.

Harold shoots an uneasy glance at the severe face of Agent Hersh, wedged in the booth next to Shaw, as forbidding as ever in his greatcoat, a glass of whisky neat sitting untouched before him. "Wasn't miracle," Hersh offers. "Rudimentary system." 

" _After which_ ," Shaw continues, ignoring her former mentor, " _George_ dragged his ass up to the roof, where the real action was going down. John and I managed to get Root away from the action, and while we were distracted, Hersh shot Colliers." 

Harold sighs, even as he feels John's hand rest on his knee under the table of the booth, warm and carefully gentle. Hersh shrugs. "Reasonable damage."

"What happened to that... other gentleman? The one from Decima?" Harold asks, even as his phone beeps in his pocket. He slides it out briefly, ascertaining that Fusco had managed to successfully escort 'Cocopops' to a safe location of her choice, and was bluntly expressing his future disinclination to act as a 'driver' for 'fruitloops'. 

"There one moment, gone the next." Shaw shrugs. "Control's on the warpath."

"So," Hersh says gruffly. "Truce?"

"So _that's_ why you suddenly became a social drinker," Shaw drawls. Hersh had somehow managed to contact Shaw a day after the Post Office operation, with a proposition that they all meet at a place of Harold's choosing: Hersh and Control and Harold's 'Machine Gang'. Harold had, at John's insistence, countered by offering just to meet Hersh. 

John was still tense, far too frozen beside him, clearly alert for treachery, for all that his smile was easy and his tone deliberately bland. "Now, now, Shaw, it isn't nice to imply that someone has no friends."

"I agree that the Company and my operation have rather more mutual problems than originally anticipated," Harold says hurriedly, as Hersh frowns at John. "A truce would be appreciated." 

"Good talk," Hersh decides, downing his whisky, and trundles off. John visibly relaxes, even though his - and Shaw's - gaze follow Hersh pointedly until the agent is out of the bar. 

"You can't trust a truce from them," John notes, his hand on Harold's knee shifting an impudent inch higher. 

"I agree," Harold notes dryly. "But what did you want me to say? 'No'?"

John offers him the smallest hint of a grin, even as Shaw says dryly, "Hersh knows about you and the Machine. They'll probably see you as an easier 'interface' to control than Root." 

"That wasn't exactly the problem that the Company faced, the last time they attempted to kidnap and hold Root," Harold reminds them. "At least for now, we need Control's resources - and influence - to stem the problem of Samaritan."

"Or they might decide to take Samaritan for themselves," John says mildly.

"Or start it up in another, more tractable country," Shaw adds. 

"It's so pleasant to see the both of you brimming with good cheer," Harold mutters, depressed all over again. "Samaritan isn't the only matter, and at present, it's a minor one. After Collier's death, there's been a great deal of new Occupy and Anonymous protests over questions of big government, censorship and surveillance. A Samaritan project won't be able to run through Congress right now, not so near the primary season."

"Politics," Shaw shrugs. "You can hate it, or you can hate it. What next?"

"The way I see it, the Machine is my main problem right now," Harold notes uncomfortably. "I need to analyse the extent of its... self-evolution."

"Its moral code?" Shaw drawls, her tone dripping with mock severity, and John shoots her a brief, sharp glare that she pointedly ignores. "Face it, Finch. You made something that was intended to act like some sort of... societal antibody. Antibodies don't kneecap infections. They destroy them. For the good of the system."

"A medical metaphor. Really Shaw?" John raises his eyebrows.

Harold sighs. "No, I do see your point, Miss Shaw. I can't say I'm comfortable with it, regardless. Guantanamo-"

"Places like black sites and Guantanamo aren't the _Machine's_ fault," Shaw points out. 

"Arranging for us to excise people _is_ ," Harold counters, and stares down at his own untouched whisky. "But I recognise that it _is_ my creation. My responsibility. I won't run from that."

"Well, good." Shaw says briskly, and rises to her feet. "I'm out. Call me when you have a new number." She squeezes out of the booth, and hesitates, glancing between Harold and John with a look that Harold can't quite parse. John, however, frowns very slightly, as though in warning, and Shaw smirks at him. "Glad you're back, Finch," Shaw notes, pats John mockingly on the shoulder, and saunters off. 

At Harold's feet, Bear yips, as though in agreement, and John sighs. "Home?"

"Not the library," Harold says unthinkingly, and tries not to shudder. He can't - he doesn't quite want to deal with the Machine yet. The satellite phone has been silent, and he hasn't had any other calls so far, but the magnitude of his new task lies broodingly before him. 

"My place?" John suggests, trying to sound casual, but his eyes are far too intent, and after a moment's hesitation, Harold nods slightly. 

John's hand is warm over the small of Harold's back as they head out of the bar and into one of Harold's black cars, Bear whuffling as it jumps into the back seat. Harold lets John drive, hands folded in his lap and watching the traffic. The city's still starting to get back into its normal pace, the damage from looters and more still being fixed. The police presence is heavy, even as it ignores them, and perhaps this is why there haven't been any numbers over the last couple of days. 

"Maybe the Machine is just going to talk to Root again," John says into the comfortable silence, startling Harold into flinching. 

"It probably is." Harold no longer knows what he feels about that. Relief, certainly. But worry as well. More than before.

"It's not healthy."

"No." Harold exhales. "I'll speak to it again. I will." He hesitates for a long moment, then adds, tentatively, "John, Fusco told me... when I was gone, about you-"

John's expression goes very still for a moment. "Fusco exaggerates." 

"Was he?"

"Does it matter now?" There's an edge to John's voice that startles Harold: he's never heard it in John's voice before. Not when talking to Harold himself. When Harold falls silent, blinking, John exhales, in a long, harsh breath, and adds firmly, "It doesn't matter now." 

_Another fractured creature,_ Harold thinks, looking back out towards traffic, and he swallows. _Turning and turning in the widening gyre_. 

John's hand is firmer against his back when they ride the lift up to John's apartment, Bear pressed against Harold's flank, and another verse edges up, troubled: _surely some revelation is at hand_. 

Lips brush carefully against the back of his stiffened neck, and Harold sighs, a soft and whispery sound that makes John briefly tense against him until Harold leans as much as he can back into the touch. Bear bounds away onto the couch when they finally stumble into John's apartment, shedding their clothes with a growing urgency that would have appalled Harold but a handful of days ago, Savile Row jackets and waistcoat abandoned on the carpet, kissing their way in a twisting gyre towards John's bedroom, hands frantic on each other, mouths feverish, breaths in fragments, desire like a tide, like anarchy. 

Harold ends up on his back on the bed, with John riding him, barely slicked, gritty and tight and probably painful, given the tight cast to John's eyes, but John ignores Harold's protests and the feeble tugs on his hips, riding him with all his beautiful lupine strength, open-mouthed and flushed like he is drowning, and Harold can do nothing more than hold on, with his back and leg starting to throb in pain, desire growing thorny on the ache.

This is what devotion looks like, Harold thinks, dazed, as he strokes his palms tentatively up John's thighs and watches him whine and shiver, then choke out Harold's name when Harold rubs his thumb up the straining arc of John's cock. John's rhythm breaks, his breaths shattering into sobs, and when Harold gets his fingers around John's cock for a squeeze, dry as it is, John cries out and spills in thick bursts over Harold's fingers. 

His rhythm stops for a moment, and when Harold lets out a low moan, John hisses and starts to move again, shivering, head thrown back, eyes closed as though in concentration, and it is to this that Harold comes, this memory that he will treasure, joy and ecstasy both naked on John's handsome face. 

It is devotion that John presses into his skin, afterwards, as lips trace a slow path up Harold's shoulder to his cheek on the bed, devotion that John whispers against his mouth. The unsettled disorientation that Harold has felt since the senator's house fades further, then melts away, and he gasps as John kisses him between his eyes, as though he had known, as though he had heard. Through this life that Harold has wrought for them both, John will always be there, a bulwark of strength upon which all else will break, and all the uncertainty that is within Harold slots and locks into resolution. 

Tomorrow. Harold will go back to the library tomorrow.

II.

The numbers start again the next morning, through text, as though nothing had ever changed: other than the quick kiss that John sneaks in before he leaves on reconnaissance with Shaw. Harold settles back at his desk, breathing out, and goes through the motions, checking the Number's bank accounts, his online presence, sketching out his digital footprint. He's barely thinking about it, barely paying attention. Something's settled heavily within him the moment that he had received the text, a great and uncomfortable weight, and it takes Harold half a day to recognise it as disappointment.

Disappointment. 

Pushing himself briefly away from the desk, Harold glances down as Bear perks up, expecting a ball, or a walk, and as the dog thumps its tail against its bed, panting happily, Harold brings up a hand, and Bear nudges its muzzle against his palm, licking him. 

"What rough beast, its hour come round at last," Harold murmurs, as the dog settles back down. What has come to be born, vexed to nightmare? Something pitiless, its innocence drowned by its purpose? A falcon that sought another falconer? 

_Does it matter now?_

Fault is a question for those with the luxury of history, Harold decides, for those with the luxury of time. He has put this off long enough, however unconsciously, and he has learned. Sometimes, necessity dictates change, not the other way around, and the Machine is as Harold has cast it, as John and Shaw have said: it is a judge of all men, judge and jury. He cannot allow it to turn executioner too. He can't allow Root to be the only falconer. 

Slowly, Harold sets his phone on the desk, and then he shuts down the computer, watching the screens wink out one by one. He closes his eyes briefly, lets out a long breath, then takes in a new one, in the silence that grows in the room. 

When, at last, he is at peace, Harold whispers, "Can you hear me?" 

There is a long moment of silence, like the world itself holding its breath, and then the phone begins to ring.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! had to try and finish the fic... ^^


End file.
